I couldn’t find any brushes and I don’t like shopping on Sunday so I thought instead of painting I’d just work on the mast mount. Now I’d initially had this really complicated mount in my head (a dark and scary place at the best of times:-) but after a bit of advice, from shipwright, on how strong the step would need to be I simplified my plan.

So I squared up a piece of Douglas Fir I think I got from my Dad before evening leaving the College, so its a well travelled piece of fir.

I found the centre and initially thought about drilling a hole big enough to slide the mast in. Except I don’t have a drill that big. So I changed gears a bit and did this:

I fit this kinda like you do horseshoes, I got close with a good first estimate and then tweaked it a bit to get this:

A little epoxy to hold it together and waterproof the inside channel and it will be ready for mounting

I still have the rest of the mast to smooth and taper. I was about to cut the pintels when my garage sale lathe arrived so this is were I left it for today. And tomorrow its back to work so the progress will slow a little. This is just a shot of some of the fantastic country side I drove through on my way back from Rivers.

-- "Checking for square? What madness is this! The cabinet is square because I will it to be so!" Jeremy Greiner LJ Topic#20953 2011 Feb 2

3 comments so far

Massive mast step Mark.Friendship’s is a 2” square hole two inches deep that fits a 2X2X2 tenon on the bottom of the mast. I will admit that the block with the hole in it is well secured to the hull and keel however.I don’t know the rig on this little guy but in most cases it is a good idea to keep the mast from rotating ( hence the square tenon). Might be an idea to glue some little triangular bits on the foot of the mast to re- square it.

I checked this evening when I got home and as I hadn’t finished rounding the whole length on end of the mast is still 8 sided and cannot rotate. I’m going to mount this block at the top edge of the ‘sail locker’ bulkhead with a smaller pad at the very bottom to locate the mast on the hull. This block may be overkill but it will also act as a lid stop for the locker. It probably would have been helpful to see a real sailboat before I started building this one. I think the last sail boat I saw was the ketch Nonsuch at the Museum of Man and Nature in Winnipeg a couple of years ago.:-)

-- "Checking for square? What madness is this! The cabinet is square because I will it to be so!" Jeremy Greiner LJ Topic#20953 2011 Feb 2